Thursday, April 21, 2005

Homeward Bound

I am going home today, after a period of 7 months or so. To say the least, I am very excited. I'll stay at home for 6 days. I am not sure of my blogging activities from home. I used to have a computer at home, but I don't think that my parents use the internet, and so there might not be any internet connection at home. I live in a town where the internet cafes still charge exhorbitant rates for insanely slow internet connection. I may blog in sporadic burts, but about that I am not sure. Normal blogging will resume after I return on 1st May. My only concern right now is my tummy which has been giving me trouble for the last 2 days. I hope nothing untowardly happens and my stomach holds good for the 40 hr train journey.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Ineptitude and greatness

At the cost of sounding like a facist, I'd say that people actually don't know what they want. Its actually a few who tell them what they want and process it for them. People are happy for some time to be actually guided by this few (whom Ayn Rand would call the motors who run the world). And there are others who don't know what to do. Those who immediately come to mind are the HR managers of the company I am working in.

Six Sigma, CMM, PCMM and a plethora of those arconyms later, what stands out is their exemplary ineptitude. Now they have come up with a new form of harrassment. They call it background check. Agreed that it is a necessity because some people nowadays rely on forged documents to get into a company which is unearthed at a very late stage (if at all). So, now not only have they made the BG check mandatory (even for current employees), they have also made sure that its a real pain in the arse. One gets a new mail everyday as to what new documents one has to fill up and send to different people, only to get a new mail the next day that the documents need not have been sent where they were sent and the correct person to who they are supposed to be sent is also mentioned. Confusion rules roost.

Coming back to the real men, though it may not have been written as a tribute to the "producers" of the world, Stephen Spender's poem "I think Continually..", makes me think of them whenever I read the poem. What I find most fascinating about the poem is the last two lines of the middle stanza. We usually allow the world to finally get to us, but those who are truly great hold out. After the imagery weaved in the first stanza, the middle stanza goes on to state that..

What is precious is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.
The poet then moves over to an entirely different level as he pays tribute to those "born of the sun" and ends in a flourish..

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are feted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honor.
I strive for greatness...

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Malvani Cuisine

Had my first tryst with Malvani food today in a food fest at the office cafeteria. Malvani cuisine, like Malvani Konkani, is a variation of the Karwari and Goan cuisines peppered with associations with the Gaud Saraswat Brahmin community. The menu ranged from Komdi (chicken, for the uninitiated) wada to prawn curry and the normal food with some unpronounceable names (not their fault of course). It also included 2-3 liquids in different colours. They don't seem to have any veggie curry item 'cos the liquids had nothing but coconut and ground groundnuts. Every Malvani-Karwari-Goan or Saraswat meal is rounded off with a delicately fragrant, carmine coloured brew, the Solkadhi. This is made from Kokum, the dried peel of the luscious red fruit, Ratamba or Garcinia, which the Portuguese brought into India along with chilies and potatoes from the land of the Incas and Aztecs. This brew was also present and I felt that it smelt like some flower, rose may be. I cannot say whether the food was good or bad because I don't know how it should be. But it did not suit my palate. Still it was worth a try.

Monday, April 18, 2005

Cardinal Choice

The papal elections are supposed to start today with the cardinals to be locked in the Sistine Chapel. NDTV has a nice article on the election process. I had read about the Papal elections, just a few days before the death of the Pope in "Angels and Demons". Dan Brown's description was very interesting and tells of a couple of technicalities also. At any rate the book is a good fiction read especially for conspiracy theory buffs.
Talking of books, I finished reading Gandhi's autobiography last week and had planned to blog my thoughts about it but somehow was not able to do it last week. Now that post has to wait as I will be going on a leave towards the end of the week.

Same story, contradictory reports

Was reading the TOI today. There was a piece on the front page which said that Sanjay Dutt had got into a brawl in a bar. I read it. It said..
Actor Sanjay Dutt was involved in a brawl at the Enigma discotheque at JW Marriott Hotel, Juhu, late on Saturday night. Sanjay, according to a source, was with actor Salman Khan and making the most of the weekend.
Apparently, on one occasion, Salman teased him, following which Sanjay, who already had a few drinks, entered into an argument with him.A few youths, who were dancing at the disco along with their girlfriends, took pictures of the actors on their camera phones.
While Salman left the place, Sanjay got wild with the youths who were shooting him on their mobile phones and started hitting and abusing them. He said they had no business clicking his snaps. A few glasses were broken in the process. All these happened around 1 am.
While the brawl was on, a corporator of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) from Thane, Pratap Sarnaik, walked into the disco with his friends. “When I saw Sanjay in action, I intervened. I identified myself and told him that his behaviour was unbecoming of the son of a Union minister (Sunil Dutt of the Congress). At this, Sanjay abused the Congress. I asked him to behave himself. Meanwhile, bouncers at the disco stepped in and escorted Sanjay out of the disco. They did not rough him but politely led him out of the place,” Sarnaik told TOI on Sunday.
Sanjay was unavailable for comment, but his personal assistant Kalim confirmed that the actor was at the disco on Saturday night. But he said “you have got a wrong version of the episode. Somebody is distorting the facts.”
He declined to state what the “facts” were. JW Marriott spokesperson pleaded ignorance about the incident. The disco is closed on Sundays and the manager was not available for comment. Nobody has lodged a complaint with the police.
I thought "lets check out if the other newspapers put the "facts" differently". I subsequently read the Indian Express and then Mid day. The Indian Express says..
Actor Sanjay Dutt pushed around a fan who, with a friend, insisted on taking cellphone photos of the star in the parking area of Juhu’s J.W. Marriot hotel, eyewitnesses said. No injuries were reported and no police complaint was filed by either Dutt or the man who was attacked.
There were many eyewitnesses but Dutt — known for his hot temper — denied any brawl. "Nothing like that ever happened," he said. The hotel also denied the incident.
The incident happened around 2 am. Dutt had dropped by at the Marriot’s nightclub, Enigma, to meet Salman Khan, who was with the people working on Marigold, Khan’s Hollywood project.
After spending 15 minutes with Khan, Dutt was about to leave for home when two men, "corporate types", in the words of one eyewitness, insisted on taking photos with their cellphone cameras. The men even asked Dutt to pose with his Landcruiser.
Dutt, a few drinks down, refused. "But these men went on trying to take photos, so Sanjay started beating one of them and flung his cellphone," an eyewitness said. Dutt then drove away.
The Mid Day also corroborated the Indian Express more or less. The article can be found here. What I dont understand is how can two newspapers report the same thing differently. May be they spoke to different people. May be they got their stories from clashing parties. Whatever, I don't care for either party.

Friday, April 15, 2005

Haircut

I had once written about a show on DD with amazing graphics. It can be read here. The producers were intent on making a thriller but what has come about is a comedy of sorts. Where else but on this show would one find "dollars" being spelled as "dolers" and "colonel" as "cornel"? One would want to watch it again and again just to find out how bad it could get. Catch it on DD every thursday night at 10 and judge for yourself. But remember to watch with a pinch of salt.

Its good bye time for my long hair tomorrow. I had bet my hair on India winning today's match. And Afridi was in no mood to spare my hair. So it back to short hair from tomorrow.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

Mad(e) for cricket

If you are wondering why I am going hammer and tongs on cricket at this moment, then go ahead and read this.

Since early childhood I have been attracted to this game. My earliest memories have been the ones associted with cricket. I fondly remember the 1983 World Cup going on and I (all of 2 years) sitting on the dinning table, with my mom churning the curd while listening to the commentary on the radio, and as soon as their was some noise I would excitedly ask "Who won, India or Bharat?"

I used to play cricket in the lawn in front of our house. It was a huge ground for a kid and I have had the best times playing on it every afternoon. I was not a particularly great player, but my fielding used to be fantastic. I would dive around and pull off unimaginable catches (I still remember most of them) to the surprise of the batsmen. Partly due to this fact, when our team was facing the absence of a wicket keeper, I had to don the big gloves (literally, 'cos at that time I used to keep bare handed due to the lack of keeping gloves in the team). I have suffered some injuries as well. The index fingers of both my hands have subsequently become skewed. Even the bridge of my nose is twisted, the result of being hit by the bat while fielding close in.

After the 10th board exams, we used to play a match almost every alternative day. This continued till one of my very good friends and teammate had sunstroke. Even during my 11th and 12th classes, we continued to play both official as well as unofficial matches. Our matches used to be between 15 and 20 overs long. I used to be so absorbed in the game that I used to forget everything else and unlike a lot of other people the part I loved most was being on the field. I have played very little after my illness (jaundice and measles) in 2000-01 but have still keenly followed the game.

Another incident I remember relating to the World Cup was in 1996. I had performed not too well in the exams. When my class teacher asked me the reason, I bluntly said that World Cup was on. She retorted that even if it was, it was the same for others as well and they still managed to study. But my dear madam, though cricket was there for everyone, everyone was not mad for cricket! I just love this game.

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Ganguly bowled out?

At this point of time, Saurav Ganguly's suspension may well be a blessing in disguise for the Indian team this series. Not only was he awefully out of form, his poor run with the bat was also starting to affect his captaincy.

Ganguly is a man who everyone loves to hate. But his contribution to the Indian cricket has been immense, both as a player and as a captain. Having scored around 15000 runs in international cricket and being the nemesis of opposition bowlers, he even matched Sachin Tendulkar stroke for stroke at one point of time in their opening partnerships. And that is no mean feat. As a captain, he has brought together a lot of youngsters and a fresh lease of life into the team. His penchant for backing for the players he has faith on (like Yuvi and Bhajji) is well known. He has also not shied away from returning the barbs of the opposing captains (Steve Waugh, for instance) when most other Indian captains of the past have been known to cower. What I liked most about him was his fearlessness in all aspects of the game.

His situation is similar to the one which Mark Taylor faced at the fag end of his career. He was bold enough to drop himself from the One Day team in the interest of the side, which Ganguly found hard to do. Eventually Taylor came up with a great triple century which helped him bow with a bang, something which might not happen for Ganguly.

Whether he is given another last chance or not is a different thing, but one wouldn't have liked the Ganguly-Wright partnership, which has brought so much change in the way Indians approach their game, to end in such a sad manner. Only time will tell whether it is the end of Ganguly's love story with the Indian team.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

A Case for Sachin

Before I move on to cricket a brief overview of the afternoon. We had the PCMM result dissemination for our Pune location and we had gone to the Le Meridian at 3. It was not surprising to find that the Pune location of our company has been rated at PCMM 5. Our chairman was in the video-con and it was good listening to him. Sounded like a good chap. We then had a nice little 'Hight Tea' and snacks (too good). We walked away with mugs engraved with the company logo as souvenirs.

Now coming back to the match. I missed the second half of it except for the last over. I was disappointed with the result. And more so with the India captain when I took a look at the scoreboard. Sehwag who had conceded just four runs in his only over was not given another over. Nehra who was badly hammered was entrusted with the ball towards the end. He even conceded some runs to Sami. With the pitch playing a bit slow, I would have expected Sachin or Sehwag to do the bowling. Sachin eventually bowled a good last over but it was too late and it is very difficult to deny three runs to a batsman to Inzi's calibre. Well, I am no expert, but that was my 2 p on the situation.

Talking of Sachin, he once more showed his master class in the morning. I don't think that he was out of form, it was just that he was not spending time in the middle. Today he stayed there and came up with a beauty. I am fed up with this criticism of Sachin based on half baked wisdom. I think that those who are after his skin have very little cricketing knowledge and have not been following cricket. The period they say he has been out of form(that is the last 30 ODIs), has seen him score at an average of around 43 in ODIs. When you compare this against his career average of 45, it is a bit on the lower side but it is still better than most good batsman in the world. The Sachin-bashers club also argue that he has not won enough matches for India and that he plays for personal landmarks. I believe that matches are not won by getting out, but rather by staying at the wicket and scoring runs. Sachin may not have stayed at the crease till the last run was scored (show me an opening batsman in the ODI who has stayed there till the end when a huge total was required to win) but his contribution to the team has been outstanding. It is not fair comparing batsmen who bat at different positions. A batsman like Dravid or Inzi come in at no 4 or below and they can stay till the end, but it is very difficult for an opening batsman to bat for 50 overs. And another important fact is that whenever Sachin has batted well, the batsmen around him have contributed little to the total (leave the past and let's concentrate on last year, are we forgetting the 141 at Rawalpindi or the Asia Cup Final?). The fact is that throughout his career he has had little support. I have seem him countless times being the lone battler for the team.

As far as commitment to the team cause is concerned. I feel that there are few players with his level of commitment. He has always given more than 100% be it batting, bowling or fielding. Few players run around and cover the boundaries with his energy. Few players come and take the field after scoring centuries when batting first in energy sapping conditions. And few players are ready to bowl whenever the captain asks them to (that the captain doesn't give it to him is a different matter altogether) and come up with crucial wickets. There have been very few selfless cricketers like Sachin and it hurts me a lot when I hear people taking potshots at him. In fact, very few players will survive if they have to shoulder the responsibility and expectation that Sachin carries on his shoulders.

Summing it up, there has never been a player like Sachin (this is not emotional, but there are record books to justify this). The greatest compliment that could be given to him is in the cricinfo player page and I reproduce it here... "But the finest compliment must be that bookmakers would not fix the odds – or a game – until Tendulkar was out."

Bottom line: Sachin rules.

Monday, April 11, 2005

Circus Quizzing

Yesterday night, I had my first skirmish with circus quizzing. The occasion was the Brand Equity Finals by Derek O' Brien. I was in Mumbai for the weekend, oblivious of the fact that there was a final going to happen on the Sunday evening. I came to know when I got a call from a friend (Nishith) who was also in Mumbai. I was not much interested in going, but then I had nothing better to do in the evening and decided to go. There was a newspaper clipping in the TOI which one had to exchange at Planet M to get 2 passes. Me and my quiz partner for the last couple of quizzes, Sovan, smart as we are, went without the passes.
When we reached the MMRDA grounds, there was a long queue and we realised that we needed to have passes to get in. With no Planet M nearby, our hopes of getting in seemed bleak. We were on the verge of panic. Somehow serendipity came to our rescue again. In comes a guy who asks us to which gate to go to. We tell him and say that we are looking for passes. This dude has one extra pass and he solves half our problem. And somehow we ask other people and jugaad (hindi slang for arrange) another pass as well, and find ourselves inside the enclosure.
Then the circus began. First we had a performance by some guy called Jaggi D (or whtever his name is, Punju guy whose song is a part of Rishi Rich project) which was absolutely rubbish. He even came in a tricolour jacket. These pseudo Indians who are born and live outside the country think that they can better connect with Indians wy dressing in such a manner.
Then there were two semi finals of 4 rounds each. At the end of these semifinals there was yet another performace by Raghav. While it was slightly better than the previous performance, it was nothing to write home about. Ah and then the final. It lasted just 6 rounds or so and Citibank, Chennai turned out to be eventual winners defeating the favourites (on the basis of the semifinal performance) SBI, Mumbai by a whisker. The Mumbai team rocked the semifinal but were a bit slow off the blocks in the final. As the last buzzer round began, they were at the third position 25 points adrift of Citibank. With 2 questions to go, they had come within 5 points of the leaders. Citibank held their nerves to answer the last question and win the quiz.
The quality of the questions was not great. Too much glitter and glamour (in the form of a Swiss girl by the name of Nicole, or was it Karol?) instead of good old hardcore quizzing. Derek came up with some wisecracks now and then to entertain the crowd. It was all too filmi like all Time events. I'd put it as a more popular (representing or appealing to or adapted for the benefit of the people at large) quiz than the one which would appeal to a quiz buff. What was most disappointing was that it was all to short, and had too less content. It was over as soon as it began, a bit of an anti-climax.

Worky - No time to blog

Last week was very hectic and I din't find time to blog properly. Since the delivery has been made and appreciated, its time to get back to blogging with a vengeance.
I'll of course write about my experiences of watching the Brand Equity Quiz Finals but before that, some filmi stuff (hey Derek din't inspire me into this).
Trust Salman Khan and his brothers to come up with movies which have stupid titles. First it was 'I, Proud to be an Indian' and now it is 'Lucky - No time for love'. I have personally not watched the movie (the title makes me want to watch it and find out how bad it is) but the trailers which I have seen are repulsive. A couple of guys who have watched it have advised me not to follow my curiosity and not waste time and money on this. Have to wait to find out if I can resist the title.
Another of those nice titled movies I am not looking forward to is Sunny Deol's 'Jo Bole Sonihal'. His movies, more often than not, get on my nerves with their excessive hamming and too much action. I don't know how people managed to like Gadar, for I found it extremely irksome. But this is a democracy and I can't comment much on other people's likings.
Take the Pepsi's new commercial, for instance. The bubbly one. Though the tune is good, I absolutely detest the ad. Well, it comes in the wake of Indira Nooyi saying that she has never seen a bad Pepsi commercial come out of India. I don't know if she had seen this ad when she made the comment. And if she had seen it and liked it, then democracy it is and everyone is entitled to his/her opinion.

Saturday, April 09, 2005

Liberated

I am liberated at last. Successfully completed the testing of the programs I had coded. I had run into some rough weather yesterday with the testing and had to be here till late. I returned home quite late yesterday and found that I had only a packet of Maggi noodles to eat. After devouring it in no time I was still famished and could have easily eaten another packet. I made it up to my tummy by having a double breakfast in the morning. Even today morning I had to run a background task which abended (jargon for abnormal termination or ending) and had to go through the entire code of that task and a couple of other programs it was calling to pinpoint and eliminate it. I was aprehensive, as yesterday the background task code was making no sense to me. But today, when I needed it, it unraveled with ease. Seredipity my dear blog. Again to my rescue.

Enough of self panegyrics, now back to normal blogging. With the work now over, I can have a nice relaxed weekend in Mumbai. One of my teammates has returned from UK and he will be joining office on Monay, that is, if he feels like it. I hope he brings lots of chocolates for us to devour.
Came across a couple of nice pieces on Amit's blog. Find them here and here.

I hope we win tomorrow and take an unassailable lead in the series. It would be more fun if we wrap it up before the last match as the General is supposed to come to Delhi to watch it and it would be great if he is watching a dead rubber.

Update1: When I was trying to post this, the server was down and I couldn't upload it. It was salvaged using the blogger's recover the post facility.

Update2: Got a nice mail of appreciation from the client for the work I had done last week.

Thursday, April 07, 2005

It never rains

When I was in school, I came across a proverb which I found hard to understand. It was "It never rains, but pours". Today I grasp its full import as I sit in the office at this unearthly hour.

As I have said before, I am shadowing for my PL, and there is a delivery tomorrow. While he enjoys life with his wife and kids at home, I sit here alone clearing up the shit, that too without food.

It has been a difficult day. The link has been down and I have had other interruptions from my PM asking me to help him. This help has been ranging from JPEG to PowerPoint to Excel to Word. I have realised that PMs have very less work to do apart from preparing stupid presentations and exploiting people like me.

And on top of that my PL keeps on reminding me that we have to finish up by today. Its a different thing that it will take most of tomorrow to finish.

Well, thats professional life. Got to take such days in the stride and move on.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Career Choice

My cousin is at that juncture of his life where he needs to make a career choice. He has just appeared his 10th examinations. Now the onus is on him to decide what stream he wants to go into. He wants to become an animator. But he does not know how to be one. Nor does anyone in the near family. He is good at drawing and is of a creative bend of mind. He is rather confused whether an engineering degree will help him or not. I think that its a cruel choice to make at 16. But now this can't be avoided.
If anyone reading this has any idea on how he should go about, please comment here and leave your mail id. I'll get in touch with you.

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Who is this Dhoni?

In the morning when I was having my breakfast in the office cafeteria, the TV was on and Dhoni was in full flow. One guy came in and asked who was batting with Sehwag. I told him it was Dhoni. He asked, "Who is this Dhoni?"
And when I told him that he is our new keeper and an explosive batsman, he gave me a dumb look.
After today's breathtaking knock, I hope everyone knows who Dhoni is.
I had seen him once representing India A in Nairobi. He seemed to me be a man who carried a swagger with him when he was batting. He was literally toying with the bowling, hitting massive sixes over the extra cover boundary, irrespective of whether it was a spinner or a medium pacer bowling to him. He was in a complete belligerent mood. I think he even got a century. Since then I have kept an eye on his domestic performances and have noticed that whenever he scores, he scores big and that too at a terrific rate. Hope this century is not just a flash in the pan and he will continue to impress.

Moving away from cricket, my dull life at the office has suddenly sprung to life, at least for a week. Some work has come up (I am shadowing for someone) and I am enjoying it for a change.

Update: The network people at my office have blocked sports sites. They say that they have installed websense. But I thoroughly enjoy my cricket coverage using my Mozilla Firefox browser! Seems that they have taken only half measures.

Monday, April 04, 2005

Phone Calls

A very interesting thing happened this Saturday, rather an interesting phone call. Sometime in the evening I got a call on my cell from an unknown number. Thus went the conversation (C-Caller, Me-Me, my thoghts in parenthesis, background info in braces):
C - "Is this Mehul?" (a female caller - implies call centre people - credit card - oh no! - too tired to talk - will be outright rude)
Me - "Yup"
C - "This is S******" {the name of the caller blanked out to protect privacy} (can't be the same girl who studied with me.. been close to 2 years since we talked.. can't be she.. its not even my birthday.. besides, the voice sounds different.. there are a lot of girls with that name.. sure is some credit card girl)
Me - {dryly}"O.K."
pause
C - "So how are you?" (hey whats with these call centre gals? they are getting personal. is she call centre at all? oh shit. this is the gal who was in college with me)
Me - "I am fine what about you?" (eeks.. another foot in the mouth.. u did it again jats)

I will leave the conversation at that so that what was discussed remains privileged information between the caller and the called ;o).
The purpose of this, was to show that the prevalence of the call centre calls is so much that we often think that even personal calls from people we have not heard in a long time are from call centres and start being rude over the phone. Its time that such invasion on privacy by the telemarketing people is stopped.

Friday, April 01, 2005

April Fool jokes

My boss played a nice little April fool joke on me. As soon as he came in, he told me that Ganguly had been replaced by Sehwag as the captain for the forthcoming oneday series. I was frantically trying to search for confirmation when I realised that it could be an April Fool's joke.
Anyways, a nice article by Harsha Bhogle here.
Report which was recently made public says that intelligence about Iraq was "dead wrong". Find it here.

Paper Jam

We have a funny little printer at the office. Whenever you try to print on the other side of the paper, the printer zaps and we get a paper jam.
Today I went to get the photocopy of my degree cert done. And, believe it or not, when I tried to get the reverse photocopied on the same page, I got the same freaking message.. Remove Paper Jam!!